Together with a friend I can go and shoot some pictures soon in a tailor where they sell quite expensive suits (tailor-made and all that) The owner will pay €50 for a good photograph and will buy a maximum of four, to use them as backgrounds for his suits. This would be awesome, since this shop is in one of the biggest shopping and going-out places and loads of people would see our photo's. I really wanna make this work, so if anyone has any advice for me, i'd be quite grateful!

We were thinking to do a couple of sessions and hoping to get somewhat of a theme, maybe four nice pictures of little details like those fancy buttons in the sleeves of a shirt (i dont know the english word) or a closeup of someone being measured, those kind of stylized images. Maybe convert them to black and white to make them not too dominant (the attention should still go to the suits i guess) and add a little continuity.

I'm really interested in any tips I could get on what traps to avoid, what lighting to strive for (though I havent got an external flash) or any tips in general.

Now i dont quite understand the "job" itself, are the photos going to be of whole made suits or details on the suits? What i mean by this is; are the photos for "decoration" purpose ei to decorate the store, or are they to show of certain things that they can do?!

I would do some research, i know what you mean about those buttons, if i m not mistaken they are called cuffs. That would be pretty nice. I m sure you can find alot of inspiration on the web!

Personally when i hear suit i see elegance, i see success and i see a nice suit!

Together with a friend I can go and shoot some pictures soon in a tailor where they sell quite expensive suits (tailor-made and all that) The owner will pay €50 for a good photograph and will buy a maximum of four, to use them as backgrounds for his suits. This would be awesome, since this shop is in one of the biggest shopping and going-out places and loads of people would see our photo's. I really wanna make this work, so if anyone has any advice for me, i'd be quite grateful!

Do you know how big you have to print these images?

Paukl wrote:

We were thinking to do a couple of sessions and hoping to get somewhat of a theme, maybe four nice pictures of little details like those fancy buttons in the sleeves of a shirt (i dont know the english word) or a closeup of someone being measured, those kind of stylized images. Maybe convert them to black and white to make them not too dominant (the attention should still go to the suits i guess) and add a little continuity.

The sartorial term you're looking for is cufflinks. I'm not terribly convinced with a close up of someone being sized, but give it a go. Black and white is a dangerous way to go unless you've got that in your brief. If you're aiming for a set of images, make sure there's a definite theme. Having one monochrome image out of them may unbalance things a little.

Paukl wrote:

I'm really interested in any tips I could get on what traps to avoid, what lighting to strive for (though I havent got an external flash) or any tips in general.

Well seeing as you have no artificial lighting in your arsenal, use natural light. Suits near windows on a cloudy day and such...

I was worried in the beginning too about the size of the prints, since they would have to be big, but it's been dismissed as a problem. This guy is just looking for a relatively cheap replacement for the white backdrops. It's pretty much just a background for the dolls wearing the suits.

Photoj, what's your reason to think of black and white as dangerous? I'm quite interested in that... It seems elegant to me